


So Confident

by VinstonCup



Category: Cars (Pixar Movies)
Genre: Florida, Identity Reveal, Mind Games, Racing, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24650818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinstonCup/pseuds/VinstonCup
Summary: When Cruz told Lightning her story on the side of that country road, she left out one crucial detail.Until now.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	So Confident

The trailer creaked more than it should have when she rolled off. The SK Shifters decal on her hood had been applied last-minute, her pitties scuttled about so frantic with lug nuts and spare fenders that they barely saw her, and the sun flared so intensely that her tires felt about to melt. 

She still smiled, and nothing around her could dim that smile. She’d made it to Florida.

Granted, the big track was twenty miles down the road from Tailgator Speedway, but from here she could still smell the salt and feel the morning mist. The Regionals were opening their season with a one-day show at this flat little four-tenths-of-a-mile. “This is where Lightning McQueen got one of his first wins,” she rattled to a crew member. “Is he here today? Did anyone see him?”

The forklift scooted backward, wincing. “Not today, kid. They’re starting practice for the 500.” Recalling something, he rolled his eyes. “I was his gasman for a while.”

Her eyes widened. “What?!?! Oh my gosh, were you at the race where he--”

“Worst month of my life.” He rolled back to the war wagon. 

Cruz had to remind herself not to bounce too hard in excitement; her springs were new. When practice started - and she’ll still tell you all about the way she drove those first few laps if you find her at Flo’s and ask nicely - her 62 was at the top of the board in no time. Five laps, ten laps, fifteen, twenty and even when the 31 cars had all turned laps, not one could match hers. When the owner called her with an offer after watching her zip around her local bullring at a time-trial day, when she promised she'd make it work, her mother had called her insane. She wasn't thinking of that now. The team was working with less than usual, the money had just come in, but she was making it work.

She zipped across the line, pistons thumping in perfect tune, rubber gripping tight, and cut a perfect arc into 1. _If they could see me now,_ she thought with a hearty laugh as she gunned it through 2, rolling over the sealer. _No more lectures, no more “dream small” junk. Just me and the track. Finally! Who cares what they--_

“They know.”

Something had come from behind her. Not terribly close behind her, maybe three car lengths. But her eyes shot right to it -- shined gunmetal silver. Low, thin, razor-sharp. “And they’re disappointed.”

What?

How would he know?

And how was she suddenly missing her line, sliding up the track enough for the shiny car to slip by on the bottom?

When the red and black flags came out, she didn’t corner him and shout like Nash had done to Heming after he spun her at East Honkers in 1957, didn’t smash into him on pit road the way Gearson and Banks had gone at it after Treadwell in ‘78, didn’t clip his fender the same way Chick Hicks had tried to win the 500 in ‘94. Amid the chatter of the teams in the paddock she went straight to her garage stall and shut off the engine, suspension still, eyes up in thought.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it that way.” The same voice.

With a gasp she backed out, and there he was, so close to her she could read the name of the mudflap dealer on his hood, she could see the flakes in his finish. “Were--were you talking to me?”

“You were talking to yourself the whole way down the backstretch. Word to the wise, sponsors _hate_ that.”

 _Dangit. I did it again._ “All of them?”

“My sister still can’t stand it when I head out racing, but I don’t care. I can’t afford to.” A friendly laugh. “Look, I get it.” Restarting his whiny engine, he pulled next to her with an open grin and gestured too close to her fenders. “You spent the last two weeks doing sponsor meetings to foot the tire bill, you got a year-old roll-me-down transmission, and you got told that if you didn’t punch above your weight tonight they’d dump you for some ride-buyer. Right? So did I.” He knocked tires with her hard, still grinning, and she jolted. “I was just trying to give some friendly advice to a fellow rookie; you can’t let things get in your head. Don’t you worry, you’ll learn to tune them out and get your hood on straight. Eventually.” He sped away as quick as he’d come, a subtle smirk on his front bumper.

Puzzled, she heard what seemed to be the beginnings of a conversation as he disappeared into his sponsor’s small tent. But she only heard his end.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I _know_ you’ve got investors watching. This is the biggest business day of _my_ life too, you know. I'm taking a chance too. Winning’s all I’ve ever done; I’m not gonna stop now. Why would I--”

“Well, maybe if you got me the GTS I could have simmed a whole--”

“Fine. Okay. I’ll take care of it.”

Not knowing what to make of this, Cruz shook it off and turned back to her crew. The salt, after all, was still in the air.

Qualifying. Cruz lined up single-file with the others on pit road as they took two laps one at at time. They were red, blue, orange, yellow, black, white against the setting sun. They were boxy and curvy and bulky and flat and they sat ready in their Lightyears, the ones that still felt a little snug on her. 

“Hey, uh, Slick,” she called ahead with a sunny friendliness, “good luck out there. Is anyone you know here to see you?”

In a deep, growly voice, the youngster answered. “Heh, my dad’s a tractor puller. He’s down past turn 1; you can’t miss him.”

She didn’t, and she felt a new sadness in seeing what she didn’t have. An emptiness. The truck was three times as big as any other vehicle around him, and looking back at Slick LaPage, she couldn’t help but notice that it seemed to run in the family. 

“Hey, I’m curious about something. And don’t take this the wrong way.” The silver car, the pole sitter as it stood, had pulled up next to her.

Her voice broke just a bit. “Uh, what?”

“How exactly did you get through tech?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, playing it nonchalant. “I went in, they did the inspection, I came out. The templates tickled a little bit, actually,” she added with a giggle.

“I’m just saying - first of all, you’re the skinniest stock car I’ve ever seen, and second of all, with a rear panel that small, there’s no way you’re getting the right amount of...what’s it called? Side force? Or downforce? One of those. Anyway, you might want to get that fixed before they stop being nice to you.”

She looked ahead, noting the racers in front of the line more carefully. Slick was wider than her, and so were the rest. They were lower, their paint was sleeker, they spoke in tougher voices. And the car beside her was all of the above. The field was idling now, engines just barely audible, so for reassurance she gave herself a rev or two. _At least,_ she thought, _I sound as good as they do._

“Even if I wanted to,” she projected with a taped-on smile, “they wouldn’t let me. It’s stock car racing, not Porto Corsa.” She forced out a laugh. “You can’t just make your body all different; it’s got to look like the one you were built with.”

The silver car backed up a bit, caught in what seemed to be genuine surprise. Then he settled. “You ever hear what happened to Motorkrass? How it took her twice as long to go through tech for years?”

“Of course I did.”

“You ever wonder why?”

Before she could answer, it was her turn to roll out. 

Her out lap looked normal from the stands. Inside, though, all she did was think - _Motorkrass won the 500, didn’t she? Wasn’t she top 15 five out of the last six years she raced? What does Motorkrass have to do with me?...well, okay, I kind of know what she has to do with me, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me--_

Cruz's first lap, to qualify for her first race, the one she’d gone to bed praying for every single night for the last twenty years of her life, was 21st quick. 

Twenty-first.

Breath short, eyes constricting, she charged into 1 quicker than she ever had in practice and downshifted sharp, braked heavy, felt her chassis straining as she willed herself not to shoot up into the wall. Still fighting herself, fumbling with the transmission as the exit of 2 came like a bullet train - was she too late with the upshift, the throttle, the grip, was she about to lose all her momentum? - she _slammed_ her shifter up into third gear. 

It clanked the wrong way.

Something touched something in a place it wasn’t supposed to, metal rubbed metal with too much friction, hot oil squirted into an unusual compartment. It all stabbed at her.

She gritted and rode it out through 3 and 4, letting the dust and the marbles rush across her as she flew over the line - her time was second quick.

_Oh, no._

Panting heavy, she parked in the garage, and her crew chief was quick to follow. “How about that, huh?” he whooped. “What a run!” He leaned in. “How do you feel? You want us to change anything? The wedge? The spoiler? The camber?” 

Putting everything into keeping her mouth still, hiding the ache just behind her engine - _what have I done?_ \- she thought for a second that this was too much, that she couldn’t take another second without just telling him she’d messed up. She needed her hood up, she needed the crew working feverishly under her and over her to fix the problem, she needed to not look like she had this under control and with two hours before the green flag she needed it to start now.

Then the silver car rolled by and parked, cable-affiliate mics and public-access cameras mobbing him. And turning toward her, he smirked.

“No, no,” she said. “I feel good.”

“You know, I did not expect this at all.” They were lined up to a packed grandstand now, waiting on pit road for the grand marshal to get mic’d up for the command, double-wide the whole way back. The silver car had kept the pole, and he hadn’t shut up. “I figured I’d start top five, but the pole? The pole? Wow. Oh my gosh, I’m speechless. I mean, I really--I just can’t believe it. I can’t.” 

More softly than she wanted to, Cruz turned to him. “You sure?”

“And then,” he continued, “someone so _unique_ gets to lead the field to the green with me?” He chuckled. “The stars are lining up.”

Trying her best to tune him out, she looked ahead. The pace car was the only one in front of her. If she kept herself together, it could stay that way. “Let’s hope.”

This, after all, was the moment right before the moment everyone had told her would never come. Before the moment she’d prepared for with all those laps before school, all that time with her nose deep in racing books, all that 95 merchandise in her room. All she had to do was get onto the track, and she’d be vindicated. She’d be the car that she, and only she, wanted herself to be.

The word “engines” finished crackling over the track speakers and all at once the throaty roars and high-pitched screams of the field surrounded her like a tsunami. The sleek sharp rookie on her left, too, made a show out of sounding his hybrid system. 

This was it.

As gentle and careful as possible, she ignited her engine, and it took. She felt herself fire, felt the warmth under her hood spread, felt certain pistons and rods rumble the way they ought to. The sharpness behind it was still there, she thought, but she could manage it. In five laps the adrenaline of going a hundred plus, trading paint for the lead, working hot rubber into the asphalt, feeling air whoosh over the forms of her metal in just the right ways, would drown it out quicker than a Clutch Aid.

Then there was a snap.

And another, and another, and everything inside her fell silent. There was the smell of burned oil and the fog of smoke pluming in her eyes as she slammed her accelerator over and over in desperation, shifted into this gear and that, never moving.

The field of strong perfect prepared racers left her behind. She could only watch the pace formation, the crowd rising on its suspensions, the happy loud first lap, the rush of the wind and the rattling marbles as the field flew by time after time after time until she got a tow out.

“I told you she wasn’t a problem,” the pole sitter radioed. 

“She can play dress-up all she wants, but she’ll never be one of us.”

He usually finished them quick, but Lightning hadn’t taken a single sip of his Nitroade in several minutes. “It was them? I’m so sorry; I wish I would have known.”

“You couldn’t have,” Cruz reassured him. “RTV never re-aired that race and no one taped it. I wasn’t even listed as a starter.” 

Backing into reverse, her 51 glinting off the floodlights, she turned to face her part of the museum. Her trophies. “Besides,” she said with an organic, toothy smile, "it all worked out, didn’t it?”

“It didn't just work out,” said McQueen, softly bumping his tire with hers. “You made it work.”


End file.
